Poll

Opinion

We’ve been flooded with information regarding the firing and re-hiring of County Building Inspector Steve Clark over the past week.
Within hours (maybe minutes?) of Clark’s dismissal, our phones started ringing and accusations of retribution were flying from one side while accusations of “false documentation and reporting” came in from the other.

EMS Director Jeff Coulter made an interesting statement during Monday night’s radio demonstration at the Spencer County Fiscal Court meeting — “All this seems like training issues and not radio issues,” Coulter said.
This being the perception of miscommunication between the sheriff and EMS radios and the radios of the city police and the local fire department.

In a 30-day “short session” like this year, it’s difficult for both chambers to fully consider all the bills that have been filed. However, over the last two weeks, the Senate has taken early action on major legislation, giving the House more time to study those bills.
This week the Senate passed important bills addressing economic development, the state’s General Fund debt, health care, and school safety.

After a three-week break, members of the General Assembly returned to Frankfort this week for part two of the 2013 Legislative Session. For the next five weeks the House and Senate will debate numerous proposals.

This week was a busy one as the General Assembly reconvened on Tuesday to a full agenda, including committee meetings and the passage of several pieces of important legislation.
As a result of the hard work over the summer and fall by a bipartisan task force made up of Senate and House members, the Senate was able to work quickly to take the first step to address the huge unfunded liability in our public employee pension system.

I met some very nice, hard-working, well-mannered men this weekend while working on a story that I hope you read on the front page — and if I hadn’t been told these men were Class D felons currently serving time in the Shelby County Detention Center, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
But again, that was the purpose of the story, so I actually did know going in.

In 2012, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes formed a special task force to facilitate communications between her office and county clerks. The task force is the first of its kind in Kentucky, and I am one of 12 county clerks from across the state participating. The task force most recently met on January 22, 2013, in Frankfort to discuss new initiatives that will assist county clerks and members of the armed services.

I recently saw a humorous cartoon on Facebook that showed four different states in our nation depicting four separate weather conditions — rain, wind, snow and sun.
The humorous part of the cartoon was that below that separated depiction was a single sketch labeled “Kentucky Weather” which showed four separate weather conditions — rain, wind, snow and sun — all occurring at the same time.
Thus seems to be the case in Kentucky this week.

A Waddy resident has come forward to claim the dog confiscated last week in connection with some animal attacks.
However, officials at the Shelby County Animal Shelter refuse to release her dog, the owner said.
“They say they won’t let me have him until they are sure he is not the dog they’re looking for,” said Brenda Tillett of Waddy.
The pit bull is a suspect in animal mutilations that killed several animals in late November and early December and ripped off a cow’s ears as recently as Jan. 6.

Back in 1897, James Ross Clemens was ill. Not-so-careful passing on of information resulted in word that Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, was dying in London. When an enterprising reporter decided to check on Twain before publishing his demise, the author responded, “The report of my death was greatly exaggerated.”

As I write to you, we’ve just completed the first week of the 2013 General Assembly Session. We’ll take a break for three weeks for everyone from newly-elected members, newly-elected leaders as well as committee chairs to get settled in. We’ll reconvene Feb. 5 for the remaining 26 days of session.

There are all kinds of medical professionals in this world and, well, I am not even close to being qualified as one of them. But I am writing this week to beg you to please be vigilant in protecting yourself against influenza, commonly known as the flu.

Hello and happy New Year. As we start the New Year, so starts a new session in Frankfort. The 2013 session of the Kentucky General Assembly is 30 days long and is known as the “short” session. During the first week, both caucuses are traditionally busy choosing their respective leaders and making committee assignments.

Monday night I left the office well after dark and headed home just like I do every week day. But Monday was different because I ended up doing something I had never done before — I called in what I thought could have been an impaired driver.
The driver didn’t cut me off and wasn’t weaving violently between the lines, but several things – including the vehicle’s slow drift into the median and slow drift over the right-hand line, speeds 15 miles below the limit and braking while driving under a clearly green light – caught my attention.

When going back over our newspapers from 2012, our staff recognized the tragedies that befell our dear county throughout the year — but we also noticed how the community has pulled together time after time, event after event to help those in need.
At first, we decided to make our “community of giving” one of the top stories of the year, but we quickly realized there had been such an immense amount of giving in 2012 that it warranted a year-in-review-type story all to itself.

Changes are coming regarding The Spencer Magnet’s editorial and advertising deadlines, and if you ever buy ads, submit letters to the editor, community announcements, wedding or birth announcements — or anything really — you will be affected.
Beginning the week of Jan. 7, The Spencer Magnet will begin printing its paper in Shepherdsville due to its company’s Shelbyville plant closing.

When I left The Spencer Magnet office on Thursday, I had the images of happy, dancing children with brand-new shoes on their feet fresh in my mind, courtesy of the One Sole Purpose campaign’s recent work at Spencer County and Taylorsville Elementary schools.
Because I only work part time, I left work that day not to return until Tuesday. I had already made plans with my editor to write a column on the exciting experience of witnessing hundreds of local preschool, head start and elementary-aged children receive a free pair of Converse tennis shoes Thursday.

Spencer County High School is undergoing a transformation in the next school year, but passersby won’t be able to tell from the outside.
The Spencer County Board of Education passed a resolution last month to support SCHS as a location for a career and technical education site.
We applaud the board members, as well as Principal Curt Haun and Assistant Principal Steven Rucker, for pushing forward to fill this need in the Spencer County educational community.

We are rapidly approaching Christmas and festivities, dinners, and all forms of celebrations that can create a massive overload of excessive trash. Everything from Christmas cards to Christmas trees must be put away or eliminated, usually after the mess we have made with our New Year’s Eve parties.